Religion
-
Sunday Night Journal — March 6, 2011 Elizabeth Goudge should have been an Inkling. At least from the literary point of view she fits perfectly with those gentlemen who gathered in Oxford at the Eagle and Child, and I’d like to think they would have enjoyed her company, and she theirs. But in any case…
-
Janet sent me this link with the observation that "he sounds more orthodox than I thought he would." Indeed he does. I'm not the biggest U2 fan, though what I like of their music I like a lot, and have assumed for a long time that their much-reported Christianity didn't amount to very much any…
-
It does not suffice to endure suffering in order to acquire experience. This demands reflection about oneself and the essential conditions of life….it requires the tranquilizing of the soul in God; it takes love, without which suffering embitters and confuses the soul instead of enlightening it. Suffering is an extreme remedy which either cures the…
-
A few weeks ago I mentioned the Carmelite monastery in Mobile (here). The last four nuns were moving out, having grown old and infirm and in need of a good deal of assistance. I've been meaning to follow up on that story. As with many religious orders, new vocations have not been arriving for many…
-
I'm basically in favor of allowing married men to become priests–we have at least one in my diocese, and he's excellent. But I think those who see it as a magical cure-all for various problems in the Church are very mistaken. It would bring its own set of problems, as of course Protestants, and I…
-
Sunday Night Journal — December 20, 2010 One of the more irritating ways of dismissing the major Christian holidays is to declare that they “celebrate the turning of the seasons” or something of that sort. You know: Christmas marks the winter solstice by placing light and music at the darkest time of year; Easter is…
-
By all indications, Stephen Hill of Music from the Hearts of Space is a secular/New-Age-y/all-religions-are-equally-valid kind of guy. But he certainly speaks very respectfully and often empathetically of Christianity. Read the notes for this week's program, which is devoted to Mary, and you'll see what I mean: …the spirit of Mary floats over Christian history like…
-
In a letter to her sister: "I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot," wrote Woolf, "who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. A corpse would…
-
Although this is a bit late for yesterday's Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I'm posting it because I heard it at Mass then. Over the years I have certainly done my share of complaining about the banal soft-pop hymns that have been the staple of Catholic music for the past thirty years or more. Some…
-
Sunday Night Journal — September 19, 2010 I finished reading N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope some weeks ago, and have been wanting to write about it, but having difficulty finding the time to do so. To let it be the subject of this week’s Sunday Night Journal seemed a way out of the impasse. But…
Light On Dark Water 